Back in March, I wrote a post at Lawyers, Guns and Money called “Remember ‘Great Power Competition?’ Lol.” As the “Grand Strategy” of Trump 2.0 comes into focus, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit and update it. In brief, the normie...
The UN General Assembly meeting has seen a growing number of states recognizing a state of Palestine, including Western powers like France, the United Kingdom and Canada. Debate has swirled over why...
How can we understand Tump 2.0 foreign policy? It’s the product of the fusion of two different forces: Christian Nationalism and Personalist Rent-Extraction.
I used to feel compelled to write something on 9/11. Some of this was just to participate in the discourse, some out of fear that failure to do so would mean moving on and forgetting. In 2009--back...
Renowned international relations scholar and practitioner Joseph S. Nye passed away last week. Numerous tributes have been written, noting his high quality scholarship and influence on US foreign policy. While most have discussed his major idea--soft power--I'd encourage today's IR scholars to...
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in” is something I would say at the risk of alienating the younger readership of this blog, but given that most of us are old here, it should be fine. I have been busy working on Russian Neo-Nazis, so I almost forgot that back in the simpler times...
Charles A. Dainoff, Robert M. Farley, and Geoffrey F. Williams answer questions about their new book
On Easter Monday, Pope Francis died at the age of 88. His passing marked the end of a 12-year papacy characterized by a commitment to the poor, an insistence on peace over posturing, and an often-controversial emphasis on mercy over rules. As white smoke issues from the Vatican--indicating a new...
I was born a proud Protestant. A Lutheran in a town still marked by Catholic-Protestant tensions, with Catholic friends who told me I don't worship right, neighbors who claimed Catholics were polytheists, and a grandmother who wore orange on St. Patrick's Day (I never quite got that, as we had no...
It’s hard to keep track of the problems confronting Americans these days. But, just in case a reminder is needed, climate change is still a thing. Casual observers may have noted that US climate policy has been…underwhelming, see-sawing between ‘Build Back Better’ aspirations and climate...
This a crosspost from Saideman's Semi-Spew. This week, we found out that Brandon Valeriano died. It is quite gutting as he had such a terrific spirit, and he was too damned young. Brandon stood out from the crowd at all the conferences as he was literally bigger than most of...
I published an article yesterday in Real Clear Defense. The title is “The Road to Securing European Cooperation on China Runs Through Ukraine”, but I suppose I could have called this piece, “How to Screw Up on Multiple Fronts at the Same Time.” That might have been harder to get past an editor. ...
The buzzword of the first Trump administration was “Great Power Competition.” That was also a lie.
Can human-rights organizations avoid accusations of racism when they criticize certain governments? Can they avoid fueling racism? Zoltán I. Búzás and Lotem Bassan-Nygate test the effectiveness of tactics to counter racism when trying to shame perpetrators.
Donald Trump’s second term in office is causing great concern about the future of the Liberal International Order (ILO) in Western capitals and headquarters of international organizations (IOs). Over the course of the last months, Trump fundamentally attacked international institutions such as the...
With the news avalanche that is Trump, it’s hard to keep track of all the outrageous things he says and does. With his recent very vocal attempts at land grabs (that we are not entirely sure will stay rhetorical) that are already being normalized in both right-wing and mainstream media, it’s...